Sunday, May 09, 2004

This Can't be a Good Thing

Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov and at least three others died in an explosion Sunday during celebrations at a stadium in the Chechen capital. Now, I freely admit (almost sheepishly) that I know next to squat about the situation in Chechnya, other than it's supposedly a Muslim hotbed. But two things strike me - this will immediately be attributed to al Qaeda (or some faction thereof), and Vlad Putin's taking a page right out of Dubya's playbook:
Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "He was a genuine and heroic person who showed in everything he did that there can never be any equality between bandits, terrorists and an entire people."

The blast comes a few weeks after Putin, in his annual state of the nation address, proclaimed the "military phase of the conflict may be considered closed" in Chechnya.Maybe someone can enlighten me about the whole situation. I'm sure I'll be reading a lot about this during the course of the day.